    [House Hearing, 115 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                             JOBS AND OPPORTUNITY:
                       LOCAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE JOBS GAP

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                        SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

                                     OF THE

                          COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
                         U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                         ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                   __________

                                 APRIL 12, 2018

                                   __________

                              Serial No. 115-HR05

                                   __________

             Printed for the use of the Committee on Ways and Means

    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                                   __________

                        U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
    33-809                  WASHINGTON : 2019

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                          COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS

                          KEVIN BRADY, Texas, Chairman

    SAM JOHNSON, Texas                   RICHARD E. NEAL, Massachusetts
    DEVIN NUNES, California              SANDER M. LEVIN, Michigan
    DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington        JOHN LEWIS, Georgia
    PETER J. ROSKAM, Illinois            LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas
    VERN BUCHANAN, Florida               MIKE THOMPSON, California
    ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska               JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut
    LYNN JENKINS, Kansas                 EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon
    ERIK PAULSEN, Minnesota              RON KIND, Wisconsin
    KENNY MARCHANT, Texas                BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey
    DIANE BLACK, Tennessee               JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
    TOM REED, New York                   DANNY DAVIS, Illinois
    MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania             LINDA SANCHEZ, California
    JIM RENACCI, Ohio                    BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
    PAT MEEHAN, Pennsylvania             TERRI SEWELL, Alabama
    KRISTI NOEM, South Dakota            SUZAN DELBENE, Washington
    GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina       JUDY CHU, California
    JASON SMITH, Missouri
    TOM RICE, South Carolina
    DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona
    JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana
    CARLOS CURBELO, Florida
    MIKE BISHOP, Michigan
    DARIN LAHOOD, Illinois

                          Gary Andres, Staff Director

                     Brandon Casey, Minority Chief Counsel

                                     ______

                        SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

                        ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska, Chairman

    JASON SMITH, Missouri                DANNY DAVIS, Illinois
    JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana             LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas
    CARLOS CURBELO, Florida              TERRI SEWELL, Alabama
    MIKE BISHOP, Michigan                JUDY CHU, California
    DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington
    TOM REED, New York

                                C O N T E N T S

                                   __________

                                                                       Page

    Advisory of April 12, 2018, announcing the hearing...............     2

                                   WITNESSES

    Connie Wilhelm, Chief Executive Officer, Home Builders
      Association of Central Arizona.................................     8
    Toby Thomas, President, Austin Electric Services, LLC............    13
    Brian Potaczek, Electrician, Austin Electric Services, LLC.......    17
    Kelly Tessitore, Vice President of Advancement, Jewish Vocational
      Service........................................................    20
    Heather Terenzio, Chief Executive Officer, Techtonic Group, LLC..    26
    Tony Girifalco, Executive Vice President, Delaware Valley
      Industrial Resource Center.....................................    50
    Justin Welner, Vice President for Human Resources, Spirit
      AeroSystems....................................................    57
    Andrew Wells, Director, Workforce Development Center, Chicago
      Urban League...................................................    64
    Peter Barrett, Senior Vice President, Marketing and Corporate
      Development, Smoker Craft, Incorporated........................    68

                             JOBS AND OPPORTUNITY:
                       LOCAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE JOBS GAP

                                  ----------

                            THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 2018

                 U.S. House of Representatives,
                           Committee on Ways and Means,
                               Subcommittee on Human Resources,
                                                        Washington, DC.

        The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:02 p.m., in
    Room 1100, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Adrian Smith
    [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
        [The advisory announcing the hearing follows:]

                  ADVISORY FROM THE COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS

                        SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

                                                    CONTACT: (202) 225-3625
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
    Thursday, April 12, 2018
    HR-05

                    Chairman Smith Announces Human Resources

                 Subcommittee Hearing on Jobs and Opportunity:

                       Local Perspectives on the Jobs Gap

        House Ways and Means Human Resources Subcommittee Chairman Adrian
    Smith (R-NE), announced today that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing
    entitled ``Jobs and Opportunity: Local Perspectives on the Jobs Gap''
    on Thursday, April 12, at 2:00 p.m. in room 1100 of the Longworth House
    Office Building. This hearing will highlight employers' demand for
    workers and the need to get more Americans into the labor force.

        In view of the limited time to hear witnesses, oral testimony at
    this hearing will be from invited witnesses only. However, any
    individual or organization may submit a written statement for
    consideration by the Committee and for inclusion in the printed record
    of the hearing.

    DETAILS FOR SUBMISSION OF WRITTEN COMMENTS:

        Please Note: Any person(s) and/or organization(s) wishing to submit
    written comments for the hearing record must follow the appropriate
    link on the hearing page of the Committee website and complete the
    informational forms. From the Committee homepage, http://
    waysandmeans.house.gov, select ``Hearings.'' Select the hearing for
    which you would like to make a submission, and click on the link
    entitled, ``Click here to provide a submission for the record.'' Once
    you have followed the online instructions, submit all requested
    information. ATTACH your submission as a Word document, in compliance
    with the formatting requirements listed below, by the close of business
    on Thursday, April 26, 2018. For questions, or if you encounter
    technical problems, please call (202) 225-3625.

    FORMATTING REQUIREMENTS:

        The Committee relies on electronic submissions for printing the
    official hearing record. As always, submissions will be included in the
    record according to the discretion of the Committee. The Committee will
    not alter the content of your submission, but we reserve the right to
    format it according to our guidelines. Any submission provided to the
    Committee by a witness, any materials submitted for the printed record,
    and any written comments in response to a request for written comments
    must conform to the guidelines listed below. Any submission not in
    compliance with these guidelines will not be printed, but will be
    maintained in the Committee files for review and use by the Committee.

        All submissions and supplementary materials must be submitted in a
    single document via email, provided in Word format and must not exceed
    a total of 10 pages. Witnesses and submitters are advised that the
    Committee relies on electronic submissions for printing the official
    hearing record.

        All submissions must include a list of all clients, persons and/or
    organizations on whose behalf the witness appears. The name, company,
    address, telephone, and fax numbers of each witness must be included in
    the body of the email. Please exclude any personal identifiable
    information in the attached submission.

        Failure to follow the formatting requirements may result in the
    exclusion of a submission. All submissions for the record are final.

        The Committee seeks to make its facilities accessible to persons
    with disabilities. If you are in need of special accommodations, please
    call 202-225-1721 or 202-226-3411 TDD/TTY in advance of the event (four
    business days' notice is requested). Questions with regard to special
    accommodation needs in general (including availability of Committee
    materials in alternative formats) may be directed to the Committee as
    noted above.

        Note: All Committee advisories and news releases are available at
        http://www.waysandmeans.house.gov/

        Chairman SMITH. The Subcommittee will come to order. Good
    afternoon, and welcome to the first in an important series of
    hearings the Human Resources Subcommittee will be holding to
    focus on jobs and opportunity.
        The purpose of these hearings is to demonstrate how as our
    economy continues to strengthen following the enactment of the
    Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, employers' demand for workers is growing
    and our Human Services programs have a role in supporting the
    next wave of workers needed to continue this economic growth.
        On Tuesday, the President signed an Executive Order
    directing agencies to seek new opportunities to reorient our
    welfare system toward economic opportunity. I agree with the
    President on this matter and appreciate his bringing the right
    tone at the right time to this conversation.
        There is a chart here. During these hearings, we are going
    to be talking a lot about the jobs gap, the difference between
    employers' demand for workers, shown as job openings in the
    chart, and the declining number of individuals in the
    workforce, shown as the labor force participation rate.
        The space in the middle separating these two lines is what
    we are calling the jobs gap. Addressing the jobs gap is about
    accessing economic growth and opportunity for those on the
    sidelines of the American workforce. This is particularly
    important given the healthy labor market and low unemployment
    rate we are seeing as a result of businesses creating jobs and
    expanding after the enactment of the new tax law.
        [The submission for the Record of Hon. Adrian Smith
    follows:]
    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Just this week, The Washington Post editorial board
    highlighted this issue by saying, ``American employers in an
    array of industries, manufacturing, agriculture, trucking, home
    building, energy, food service, retail, and others are warning
    a long brewing labor shortage is reaching crisis proportions.''
        The Wall Street Journal reported if every last jobless
    citizen in the 12 Midwestern States filled an open job in the
    region, 180,000 positions would still be left unfilled.
        What do employers and job openings have to do with the
    programs under the Human Resources Subcommittee? A lot,
    actually. We know when individuals and parents are working
    full-time, the poverty rate drops to just 3 percent.
        We know when workers are matched to employers with the
    supports provided by programs under the Subcommittee, such as
    child care, case management, and transportation, that job
    opportunities and the American dream can become a reality for
    more Americans.
        Last year, the Subcommittee set the stage for this
    discussion today. Those hearings were about people on the
    sidelines.
        We heard from experts who examine the declining
    unemployment of working-age men who told us there are more than
    7 million men in America not working or looking for work.
        We also heard about the troubling trend we are seeing among
    our youth and young adults, those 16 to 24 years old. We
    learned that there are 5.5 million not in school and also not
    working.
        This hearing takes the next step to see how this reality is
    translating for employers and workers at the local level. Now
    we see employers getting more involved by investing in
    apprenticeships, training, and helping individuals get
    connected to supportive services to address barriers to
    employment.
        What is different now is a strong economy fueled by the Tax
    Cuts and Jobs Act. This isn't about charity or government
    programs. We will hear from our witnesses there is a strong
    business case, meaning it is in the best interest of their
    business to invest in building the workforce.
        Today, we will hear from Connie Wilhelm, Chief Executive
    Officer at the Home Builders Association of Central Arizona.
    Ms. Wilhelm runs a large Home Builders Association representing
    employers with growing workforce needs.
        As a way to address this, her association has partnered
    with Arizona correctional facilities to prepare inmates for
    jobs after release by getting them access to training in the
    construction trades and addressing needs for transportation,
    housing, and soft skills.
        She is not running a social services agency either. This is
    a mutually beneficial partnership which supplies home builders
    with much-needed workers and gives inmates marketable skills
    they can use to find employment when they are released. It is
    win-win.
        We are also very excited to hear from Mr. Potaczek--did I
    get that right--okay, sorry about that--the embodiment of the
    partnerships we are referencing. He is now working as an
    electrician at Austin Electric after participating in training
    at the Arizona Department of Corrections' Employment Center. I
    am grateful to him for sharing his story and helping our
    Subcommittee gain a fuller picture of the issue at hand.
        My top priority for this Subcommittee and this Congress
    continues to be ensuring greater opportunity for all Americans.
    This hearing features two panels of witnesses who are
    experiencing real workforce challenges and have stepped up to
    show ways we can get individuals back into the labor force.
        Today, I am excited to learn from our witnesses about their
    experiences and what is working in local communities, so we can
    translate these lessons into better public policies which help
    families escape poverty and climb the economic ladder.
        With that, I recognize Ranking Member Davis for 5 minutes
    for his opening statement. Mr. Davis.
        Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I want to
    thank you for holding this hearing. And I believe that this
    area of work is one of the most important that is needed to be
    done in our country.
        This month marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination
    of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His work remains unfinished. At
    the time of his assassination, Dr. King was focusing the civil
    rights movement on economic justice and the opportunity gap
    that exists in this country. Indeed, I am proud to represent
    North Lawndale, the community in which Dr. King lived as he
    directed attention to the structure barriers that keep groups
    of Americans poor.
        If communities lack quality education, economic opportunity
    is limited. If communities lack transportation, affordable
    housing, and employers offering good jobs, economic opportunity
    is limited. If communities lack substance abuse services or job
    training programs, economic opportunity is limited.
        I hope we can agree that if we have a gap between available
    jobs and the Americans searching for opportunities, it is our
    obligation to close the gap by knocking down the obstacles
    keeping people from work, not by vilifying workers who have
    fallen on hard times and who need our help to overcome
    barriers.
        The Executive Order the President issued yesterday which
    instructs agencies to find ways to cut services and basic
    necessities for people who are poor or don't have jobs is
    exactly the wrong approach.
        For our Subcommittee, the right approach must include
    addressing structural barriers in the Temporary Assistance for
    Needy Families programs or TANF. Otherwise, our policies will
    fail our rural, urban, and suburban constituents who hit these
    barriers daily and are being left behind.
        I work closely with a number of programs in Chicago that
    work alongside employers to provide real opportunities for
    people who have been left behind by the labor market and are
    hitting walls every time they try to get a good job to make a
    better life. When I talk to these outstanding workforce
    development programs, I am struck by how few of them get any
    support from TANF, which is in this Subcommittee's
    jurisdiction.
        TANF provides $16.5 billion a year in State grants which
    are supposed to support work and ensure that low-income
    families can access basic necessities like food and housing. If
    TANF is not supporting these local education and training
    programs that lift work, are open to good jobs, and put them on
    a path to better things, that is TANF's failure and Congress
    has set TANF up for failure.
        TANF includes arbitrary limits on education and training,
    even though we know a lack of skills and credentials is a key
    reason why many struggling parents cannot find good jobs.
        TANF provides States with incentives to reduce the number
    of families being helped, but no incentives to knock down
    barriers or provide real opportunities for parents to find good
    jobs that will lift their children out of poverty.
        And TANF's investment in children and families is shrinking
    every year, as States divert TANF funds to fill budget gaps,
    and the Federal Government funding is not adjusted for
    inflation.
        Right now, TANF is creating additional roadblocks to good
    jobs for people who are already facing barriers. Our
    Subcommittee has the chance to make TANF a key to unlocking
    economic opportunities and continuing Dr. King's work.
        I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about how we
    can lift out of poverty and close the economic gap.
        Again, Mr. Chairman, I thank you for this hearing and yield
    back the balance of my time.
        Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Dr. Davis. I appreciate your
    comments.
        Without objection, other Members' opening statements will
    be made a part of the record.
        I would like to welcome our first panel of witnesses to the
    table and recognize Mr. Schweikert for the purpose of
    introducing his constituents from Arizona.
        Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, though you
    actually covered part of it.
        This is sort of a special occasion for me. Ms. Wilhelm,
    Connie, is actually one of my oldest friends. Not a comment
    about age, but I have known her probably the majority of my
    life. Her brilliant son is actually an intern in our office.
        But she is unique in the fact she is running a very large
    Home Builders Association and is a true pioneer as a woman
    doing that.
        But she also had an amazing vision here of could we reach
    into parts of our communities that have had a tough time, and
    in this case those who have been in correctional facilities,
    and bring them into our shortage of labor.
        Toby Thomas is the President of Austin Electric. He is one
    of the partners with Connie Wilhelm and the Central Arizona
    Home Builders Association in bringing this program together and
    training.
        And Brian--and it is Potaczek--Potaczek is, actually I am
    very proud of him coming here because sometimes walking into a
    room like this can be somewhat intimidating, but he has a very
    important story for us to hear. Because as we are looking at
    the most recent U6 crosstabs, we are actually seeing something
    amazing happen, and those who have been marginalized,
    particularly those with felonies, are actually getting
    opportunities to work, and I believe we are about to hear about
    a program that is working.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman SMITH. Thank you.
        The remaining witnesses on our panel include Ms. Kelly
    Tessitore--you are not just saying yes--okay, okay--Vice
    President of Advancement at Jewish Vocational Serice in Boston,
    Massachusetts; and Ms. Heather Terenzio, Chief Executive
    Officer of the Techtonic Group from Boulder, Colorado.
        Witnesses are reminded to limit their oral statements to 5
    minutes. You will see the indicator there. Once you see that
    yellow light, just kind of bring the flight in for a safe
    landing and wrap that up by the time the 5 minutes conclude.
    So, all your statements will be included in the record.
        And so, we will begin with Ms. Wilhelm. You may begin when
    you are ready.

      STATEMENT OF CONNIE WILHELM, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, HOME
                BUILDERS ASSOCIATION OF CENTRAL ARIZONA

        Ms. WILHELM. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Davis, and
    Members of the Subcommittee, it is an honor to be with you here
    today to provide a brief overview of a workforce development
    program for ex-offenders during their last couple months of
    incarceration.
        I represent the Home Builders Association of Central
    Arizona. And not unlike other growing markets, the biggest
    obstacle that builders face in satisfying the demand for new
    homes is the labor to build them. So, in early 2016, the
    Association launched a number of initiatives on workforce
    development, including a partnership with the Arizona
    Department of Corrections.
        The key to our partnership with Corrections is that it is
    employer-centric. We initially traveled throughout the State
    holding hiring fairs at prisons with companies representing
    residential plumbing, electrical, masonry, framing, and drywall
    trades, seeking inmates releasing into the Phoenix market.
    Participating employers were required to have paid training
    programs and be willing to work with this population's unique
    challenges of parole, drug tests, and transportation.
        In March of 2017, as part of a statewide effort to reduce
    recidivism, Governor Ducey established three Second Chance
    Centers within the correctional facilities for those inmates
    releasing in 60 days who had a moderate to high probability of
    recidivating.
        This collaboration between the Arizona Department of
    Corrections and the Department of Economic Security consists of
    a 10-week training program to prepare and equip inmates with
    the career and life skills they need to succeed after release.
    Since studies have shown that employment is the most direct
    link to reducing recidivism, job fairs and connecting with
    employers is a huge part of this effort.
        At our first construction job fair at the Second Chance
    Center outside Phoenix, we found that many inmates had
    construction experience and others were eager to learn a
    construction trade. Shortly thereafter, we piloted training for
    two trades, electrical and painting, at the Center.
        The Lewis Second Chance Center is currently expanding for
    100 to 275 inmates, and we are expanding our career training
    offerings from two trades to six trades at this center. We will
    now offer training in electrical, drywall, framing, door and
    trim, masonry, and plumbing. Our employers provide the
    trainers, curriculum, material, and tools for their specific
    trade.
        Two of the three instructors for the electrical class were
    former felons, which provided real-life examples of success for
    the inmates.
        While 6 to 8 weeks of training is not a lot, it's enough to
    familiarize the inmate with the trade, learn how to work
    safely, and to establish a relationship with the potential
    employer. Additional training is provided once they are
    released and employed.
        Participating inmates also have the opportunity to earn an
    OSHA 10-hour card.
        Working with this population, however, has not been without
    its challenges. The majority of inmates are released to a
    halfway house and are on parole for up to 6 months, so it is a
    major challenge to find employers that are willing to take a
    chance on an ex-offender. We have had several employers join
    our program only to leave after one bad incident with a former
    offender.
        We have also had employers tell us they don't want the
    liability of hiring felons. To address that concern, last week,
    Governor Ducey signed a bill we initiated which helps protect
    employers from liability solely for hiring an ex-offender.
        Without question, the biggest challenge ex-offenders face
    in the Phoenix metro area when trying to get a job is
    transportation. Many have suspended driver's licenses because
    of civil court fines or penalties.
        To overcome that obstacle, we worked with the courts to
    pursue legislation to allow for a restricted driver's license
    that allows them to drive to work, to meet their parole
    officers, and to seek medical care. This bill was also signed
    into law last week.
        Since we started our recruitment and job training programs,
    our employers have hired over 300 ex-offenders and we expect
    that number to increase significantly with our additional
    onsite training.
        During the 5 months of piloted training, 80 inmates
    completed training and approximately 40 percent of them were
    hired by the companies who trained them.
        Since last March, over 817 individuals have graduated from
    a Second Chance Center and 54 percent of them have successfully
    gained employment upon release.
        Additionally, Arizona has seen a 10 percent drop in
    released inmates going back to prison on a technical violation
    and is experiencing the largest drop in the number of inmates
    in prisons since 1974.
        We are excited about the future of this partnership and the
    opportunity to offer careers in construction to ex-offenders.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Wilhelm follows:]
    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman SMITH. Great timing.
        I understand Mr. Thomas and Mr. Potaczek will be splitting
    their time, so begin when you are ready.

                 STATEMENT OF TOBY THOMAS, PRESIDENT,
                     AUSTIN ELECTRIC SERVICES, LLC

        Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Davis, Members of
    the Subcommittee, thank you for your invitation to speak here
    today about the workforce development and our work with the
    Home Builders Association of Central Arizona and the Arizona
    Department of Corrections.
        As the housing market began to recover, we quickly
    identified that we had a labor shortage. As production demands
    increased, so too did the shortage of qualified workers.
        To grow our business and capitalize on the increase in
    demand, we began an in-house training program to teach people
    who want a new career to wire new homes.
        In rolling out our training program, we found the single
    biggest challenge was attracting individuals who wanted to
    learn a new skill. After an exhausting 6-month recruitment
    effort, we simply could not find enough people with an interest
    in construction to grow our workforce in the numbers that we
    needed.
        In early 2016, we contracted with Connie Wilhelm and the
    Home Builders Association. Prior to our introduction, Ms.
    Wilhelm had been working on several solutions to address the
    labor shortage. One of her initiatives was to work with the
    Arizona Department of Corrections.
        Over the next several months, we participated in job fairs
    at prisons across Arizona. Through these job fairs, we were
    excited to learn that there's an eager population willing and
    ready to learn a new trade.
        Through our partnership with the Home Builders Association
    and Department of Corrections, for the past 10 months, we have
    operated a 60-day training program at the Lewis Prison outside
    of Phoenix.
        During this training, we teach wiring, blueprint reading,
    and other applicable skills. In addition, we teach conflict
    resolution lessons to improve character building abilities that
    will not only enhance them in the workforce, but in their
    personal lives and the community as well.
        Today, we have trained and hired 86 former offenders from
    our training program and have about an 80 percent retention
    rate.
        Although we have had immense success with the program, we
    have had some challenges. The most glaring are transportation,
    housing, and proper attire. These challenges can have a direct
    effect on an individual's ability to succeed on the job.
        Then there are the psychological aspects. While trainees
    are in the program, we have their undivided attention. Once
    they are released, there are outside influences that could have
    negative impacts both professionally and personally.
        Fortunately, this has been the exception to our program and
    has led to the workforce expansion that we planned for. More
    importantly, the program has exceeded all of my expectations
    with the impact it has had on individual lives and the
    community at large. We are excited to continue the program and
    grow our company.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Thomas follows:]
    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

               STATEMENT OF BRIAN POTACZEK, ELECTRICIAN,
                     AUSTIN ELECTRIC SERVICES, LLC

        Mr. POTACZEK. Thank you, Chairman Smith, and all Members of
    this Committee for allowing me to speak to you today about
    programs such as Sunrise Employment Center in Arizona
    Department of Corrections.
        My name is Brian Potaczek and I would like to share the
    impact this program has had on my life and how it has made me a
    part of society and helped me regain my family and friends back
    into my life.
        Before completing this program, I can truthfully say that I
    had no positive direction in life, along with no sense of hope
    that I could make things better. I never was a drug user.
    However, when I was 19, I had all four of my wisdom teeth
    pulled and was prescribed opioids for pain. The next thing I
    knew, I was hooked.
        Being an avid drug user of prescription pills for 6 years,
    I slowly but surely had seen my life declining before my eyes.
    I ended up losing everything I owned and loved and ended up
    incarcerated for 6 years due to the desire to do whatever it
    took to keep getting high.
        After another two prison stints because of my addiction, I
    finally came across a program that I desired and wanted more
    than anything to complete and that was the Sunrise Employment
    Center in Arizona Department of Corrections.
        Many companies came to this Employment Center, but one that
    truly had me fascinated was Austin Electric. After listening to
    the guests speak about the criteria and requirements, I quickly
    signed up for the training program and never looked back.
        One thing that caught my attention was how they would talk
    about the company as a family, and how they would help us out
    and do whatever it took to make us successful.
        In the training program, I learned the tools and knowledge
    of how to be an electrician, which is something I had never
    done before and never imagined doing.
        Upon my release, I was hired and started work that week. I
    was given rides to and from work and maintained a job with this
    company. I started with Austin at $13 an hour and now I'm
    making $22 an hour after 7 short months.
        I can truthfully say from firsthand experience that this
    program has made many success stories and only will continue to
    make more. It instills a sense of hope in the lost, a family
    for those who need one, and the motivation to be a better
    person of society.
        It is amazing when you can work with others in the program
    and slowly but surely see their life changing. That is
    something that always encourages me to stay on the right track.
        I never really had goals after being released from prison
    until I entered the program. Since then, I have rebuilt my
    trust with my family and friends and have regained their love
    and encouragement.
        Not only have I obtained employment with Austin Electric
    upon my release, I have also been able to support myself and
    not become another statistic by going back to prison. I am
    doing things now that I never thought I would, like going to
    have coffee with my mom, buying Girl Scout cookies, or just
    giving back to the community.
        Staying out of prison has been the best success story of my
    life. And every day I wake up, it is a success, and I measure
    it by that. Every day I am out of prison is something I look
    forward to. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Potaczek follows:]
    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman SMITH. Thank you very much. A very compelling
    story. Thank you.
        Ms. Tessitore.

     STATEMENT OF KELLY TESSITORE, VICE PRESIDENT OF ADVANCEMENT,
                       JEWISH VOCATIONAL SERVICE

        Ms. TESSITORE. Good afternoon, Chairman Smith, Ranking
    Member Davis, and Members of the Subcommittee. I am Kelly
    Tessitore and I am the Vice President of Advancement at Jewish
    Vocational Service in Boston, which is a nonprofit, community-
    based organization in workforce development.
        I began my career at JVS in 1996, the same year as the 1996
    welfare reform. And since then, I have designed and operated
    dozens of programs for low-income populations. I would like to
    talk to you today about my experience helping people strengthen
    skills, access jobs, and build careers.
        Last year at JVS, we served 15,000 individuals in our
    skills training, education, and job placement programs,
    including through our one-stop career center.
        Our greatest strength is our deep relationships with
    employers. We placed job candidates with more than 1,200
    employers last year and we worked with 20 more to provide on-
    site training to 1,600 incumbent workers.
        Our employer partners tell us they can't find enough
    workers with the skills they need, and in many cases, they are
    facing critical labor shortages. The current low unemployment
    rate is encouraging employers to look at hiring populations
    they haven't considered previously, which is great, but
    employers need skilled workers.
        To provide those workers and because we believe that the
    best way to lift people out of poverty is to equip them with
    in-demand skills, we partner with employers to build training
    programs.
        Let me walk you through one of our programs. Our pharmacy
    technician program includes training on medications and
    anatomy, pharmacy law, hospital basics, customer service, and
    inventory.
        We partner with pharmacy leaders CVS and Walgreens to
    provide an externship to each participant. These externships
    give students real-world experience that helps them adjust to
    work before taking on a full-time job, and they give CVS and
    Walgreens access to a pool of trained applicants that can meet
    their skill needs.
        The 12-week program prepares graduates to take and pass the
    national Pharmacy Technician Certification Exam. We cover the
    exam fees and our graduates pass the certification exam at
    higher rates than the national average.
        Pharmacy technicians earn $31,000-$44,000 on average
    nationally per year. Last year, 8 out of every 10 students
    enrolled in our program were hired. And the pharmacy technician
    program is just the first step on a career pathway, including
    pharmacy or nursing school, specialized certifications, or even
    store management.
        Although Pharm Tech and other career pathway programs at
    JVS are highly effective at moving people out of poverty, they
    don't serve many TANF recipients. On average, fewer than 10
    percent of participants in our programs are on TANF.
        We have an excellent relationship with our State TANF
    authority. We have spent a lot of time thinking together about
    why TANF doesn't move people into work and how we could change
    it. I think at the end of the day there are three major issues.
        First, TANF emphasizes job placement and de-emphasizes
    skills, even though we have 20 years of research showing that
    ``work first'' doesn't work. Although employers can't find
    workers with the skills they need to fill their critical labor
    shortages, the structure of TANF restricts education and
    training activities. TANF hasn't been updated in 20 years and
    it hasn't kept up with the way that employers are hiring now,
    and we need changes that will allow and support skills
    acquisition.
        Second, TANF is overly complicated for both clients and
    systems to administer. It counts the wrong things and it
    doesn't focus on work and skill development. TANF has become a
    benefits processing program focused on preventing abuse, rather
    than a transitional catalyst to work.
        In my 22 years of working with low-income populations, I
    can tell you that most of the people I have met do in fact want
    to work, desperately want to work, but they don't want their
    economic situation to worsen when they leave cash assistance.
    Earnings from work affect TANF, which affects childcare, which
    affects housing, which affects food stamps, and the interaction
    of those things makes work risky, instead of the safer choice
    for people on public assistance.
        We have to change the paradigm about how the benefit
    programs interact so that they can work together to launch
    people into economic mobility. I am not talking about growing
    TANF, but once people are on the caseload, we need to keep them
    engaged and continuing on a path to self-sufficiency.
        If we want people to use TANF as a transitional catalyst to
    work, we need to change the rules so that we can incentivize
    work, allow for training and skill development, and make it
    clear to participants how working will affect their future
    benefits.
        Finally, work requirements. I have operated at least a
    dozen programs that feature a work requirement, and in all
    cases, the very real struggle is that compliance becomes the
    primary deliverable and outcomes take a backseat.
        To maximize results, work requirements efforts should one,
    focus on outcomes, like increasing self-sufficiency rather than
    outputs like participation hours; two, focus on labor market
    demand and local employer needs; three, make it easier to align
    adult basic education, job training, post-secondary education,
    and support services like childcare and transportation
    assistance; four, certify programs as compliant with the work
    requirement rather than counting individual participation
    hours; and five, coordinate and recognize reciprocal compliance
    with other programs such as SNAP, WIOA, and Medicaid. Thank
    you.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Tessitore follows:]
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        Chairman SMITH. Thank you.
        Ms. Terenzio.

                    STATEMENT OF HEATHER TERENZIO,
             CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, TECHTONIC GROUP, LLC

        Ms. TERENZIO. Thank you for having me here today to speak
    about a new way to build talent in high-tech fields. I believe
    we have an innovative, low-cost way to get Americans to work in
    high-paying technology jobs without a college degree and
    without acquiring any debt.
        My name is Heather Terenzio. I am the Chief Executive
    Officer and founder of Techtonic Group, a software development
    company based in Boulder, Colorado.
        I have been the Chief Executive Officer of a technology
    company for 15 years. Our company works on writing software
    code for websites and mobile applications. Our clients have
    been everyone from venture-backed start-ups to Fortune 1000
    companies. I have an Ivy League degree and was an engineer, but
    most of what I learned about writing software I learned on the
    job.
        Over the years, I have worked with other Ivy Leaguers,
    college graduates, and people with all different kinds of
    backgrounds. And the one thing that I have learned is that if
    you have a desire and an aptitude for software development you
    can be a great software developer.
        About 4 years ago, I was giving a talk at a vocational
    school in Boulder about careers in software development. And at
    the end of the talk, a young man approached me.
        He said, ``Your company sounds so cool. I have been
    teaching myself to code for 10 years, but I only have a GED, so
    I can't find a job. But I promise if you hired me and gave me a
    chance, you would never regret it.'' And so right then and
    there, I said, ``I will see you on Monday.''
        And we learned that he had grown up in the foster care
    system, that his mother was in jail, and he had bounced around
    a lot as a kid. The one thing that gave him solace was playing
    computer games, and teaching himself how to write code, and
    build his own games.
        He absorbed everything we taught him about building
    software in a production environment and quickly became a
    contributing member of our team.
        About 4 months into his job with us, he walked into my
    office and said, ``Thank you so much for this job. I am so
    grateful to be here. You have changed the course of my life.''
        And I thought, in my 15 years in this industry, nobody had
    ever said that to me. So right then and there, I said, ``Do you
    have any friends? This is a really interesting thing that is
    happening here.''
        It turns out there were a lot of people out there like him.
    We decided to explore further and called our program an
    apprenticeship program, and we did this kind of tongue-in-cheek
    because we were training people using a paired program just
    like a journeyman and his apprentice might in the trades.
        We soon realized that apprenticeship had a Federal
    designation and decided to make it official. We worked closely
    with the Department of Labor to modify the application process
    to relevant companies like us and we became an official
    apprenticeship with the Department of Labor.
        We were the first software apprenticeship in the United
    States. We are still the only one in Colorado and we are still
    only one of a handful in the whole United States.
        For our class now, we have formalized our selection process
    and our training. For our last class, we had 500 applications
    for 10 spots. We have now had over 50 apprentices come through
    our program.
        We now offer a service to our clients where they can hire
    us to build their software, and at the end of our engagement,
    they can hire in those apprentices as their own. It is a win
    for everyone. Our clients get their software written with a
    senior team while we train apprentices. Our apprentices work on
    real-world projects while working toward a career in software
    development. Our clients can acquire our team of fully-trained
    and diverse talent as their own full-time employees.
        We have had apprentices come through our program who are
    now working for companies like Lockheed Martin, IBM, Zayo, and
    Pivotal Labs.
        Our program is able to attract a more diverse talent pool
    than a software boot camp or a college because we partner with
    our local government and foundations to pay our apprentices a
    salary while they are actually in our program. We are currently
    75 percent women, minorities, and veterans, and they are paid a
    livable wage throughout the entire program.
        We recently closed on a Series A round with a likeminded
    venture fund and we have plans to grow aggressively this
    program in the next couple of years.
        Software development developers are in high demand.
    Unemployment rates for software developers are under 2 percent.
    A college degree is not required to be a great software
    developer. We strongly believe that programs like our
    apprenticeship are a cost-effective, no debt pathway to a high-
    paying, middle-class job in a desirable field with unlimited
    career potential.
        Thank you for your time and attention here today.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Terenzio follows:]
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        Chairman SMITH. Thank you. Great perspectives. It is
    exciting to hear success stories, inspiring, in fact, from
    different perspectives, so I am very grateful.
        Mr. Potaczek, again, thank you for being here and sharing
    your personal story and being open to providing all of us up
    here with a better understanding of the challenges and
    opportunities facing individuals transitioning back into the
    labor force.
        One of our Committee's priorities is to ensure that Federal
    programs are providing the right incentives and supportive
    services to help folks escape poverty and move up the economic
    ladder. Can you speak a little more about the transition back
    into the labor force and perhaps even some of the concerns you
    had upon or during that return to the workforce?
        Mr. POTACZEK. Transitioning back into society and working,
    it is a difficult challenge; transportation, you know, boots
    for the job, tools. With this program, it has kind of given me
    a head start at that. They gave me transportation. They gave us
    work clothes like shirts. The tools, they gave us the tools to
    get started.
        So instead of getting out of incarceration with a lot of
    things on my mind, I knew that if I just did the right steps,
    by the time I got out, if I called them and asked to get hired,
    I would be hired, and I would have a jumpstart on things.
        And one of the things that always got me, the times I got
    out and went back, was I had so much on my plate I felt like it
    was hard for me to stay focused. When you are working, and you
    are--they give you the tools and whatever you need to work, it
    was a lot easier for me to stay out there and be part of
    society with working.
        And I noticed that I was working so hard that I didn't have
    time to want to do anything else. I would go home, and I would
    sleep, and I would get up and go to work.
        And then I noticed that my money started going to good
    things. It started going to society, it started going to my
    family, clothing, tools.
        I mean, that is all part of living nowadays. It is not--my
    time, assets, it was all going to positive things and I have
    never been able to say that my whole life.
        Chairman SMITH. Very good. And can you say again, you were
    released and then you, the next day, was it, that you reported
    for work?
        Mr. POTACZEK. I was released, I think, on a Friday and the
    weekend was--or maybe it was a Monday. I was released on
    Monday, and I called up Austin Electric, and I was employed at
    my interview the next Monday and started work.
        And that is another thing. I have gotten out before and I
    have called, I went and applied to 20, 30 places, I mean, fast
    food, every place you can think of. I never got one call back
    and it really kind of left me in distraught. It messed with my
    mind a little bit.
        And I am afraid of failure and I tend to shut down as a
    human when I see failure, so this program has given me a sense
    of hope. It has given me a family that I didn't have at the
    time, friends, motivation, inspiration, and success.
        And I am sitting here today, I thought I would never be
    here. I mean, you could tell me 8 years ago you are going to be
    sitting in that chair and I would tell you absolutely not.
        And the thing about it is the knowledge, you have to want
    it. That is the thing. An individual has to want to do the
    right thing, to be better, to learn more.
        It is on both ends. It is not on, you know, just my end or
    their end. Working together, and putting something positive
    into something, and making it grow has done a lot for me.
        Chairman SMITH. Very good.
        Mr. Thomas, would you care to add anything in terms of
    maybe the training that took place and how you kind of
    envisioned being able to use the skills that were required?
        Mr. THOMAS. Sure. So, when we started the program when we
    actually connected with Connie, you know, the first phase of
    the program was we would go to various Arizona prisons. And the
    biggest challenge we had in doing that was most of the inmates
    that were interested that would come to our table and show
    interest in our trade weren't getting released until 2021 or
    2022. And, unfortunately, the problem that we have, the
    shortage of manpower that we have, it is effective today. It is
    not a tomorrow problem, it is a today problem.
        So, we looked at it and said, well, you know, what would be
    really ideal would be to actually have a training program while
    they are incarcerated. So, we started the program and it has
    been very successful.
        You know, at the end of the day, the only requirement we
    have is that they have to have the desire to want to learn and
    the ability to show up and put their best foot forward each and
    every day.
        Chairman SMITH. Very good. Thank you again for your
    perspectives.
        And in the interest of time, I will now recognize the
    Ranking Member, Dr. Davis, for 5 minutes for questions he might
    have.
        Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I must
    tell you that this is one of the most pleasant hearings that I
    have ever participated in, and one of the reasons is that I
    have personally spent a great deal of time working with
    programs like these and to see the kind of success that you
    have experienced just reinforces my belief that there is much
    more success to be had.
        So, I commend all of you, I thank all of you, and I just
    know that if we can put into the programs themselves what is
    needed for people to experience the kind of successes that you
    have had, and especially when we talk about individuals who
    have been incarcerated, who have prison records.
        Mr. Potaczek, do you still have what is called a record, or
    have you been able to have anything done with that?
        Mr. POTACZEK. I am still--I have completed parole and I
    still have a record. I think I will for a while until I can, I
    guess I don't really know the process to get it dropped. That
    has always, I mean, even getting housing or something, it has
    always had an effect on me having a record, they can look that
    up.
        Mr. DAVIS. Ms. Wilhelm, let me ask you, is there much
    opportunity that you would expect him to be able to get his
    record expunged or get executive clemency or anything where he
    will not have a record?
        Ms. WILHELM. That is one of the things we are looking at
    right now. We keep trying to remove these obstacles for them as
    they get out and get released. We have not really looked into
    that. I know that there are other people in the social justice
    area that have looked at that type of thing and we will
    continue to try to work with them. I think that is a major
    obstacle that we need to take a serious look at.
        Mr. DAVIS. Thank you. Ms. Tessitore, you mentioned that
    work requirements make programs focus on compliance sometimes
    instead of work. Could you elaborate a little bit on that?
        Ms. TESSITORE. Sure. For TANF, we have to complete a
    monthly form for each person showing the hours attended on each
    day. A better system would be to ask us--``during this month,
    was this client active in your program?'' And we could say yes
    instead of spending hours and hours combing through all of our
    attendance records to compile those.
        For ABAWDS who are receiving SNAP, their standard is 80
    hours a month and they actually have a restriction on how many
    hours they can spend in job search versus an education and
    training component, so we have to count up their hours that are
    job search and their hours that are education and training.
        We pull information from four sources, from our One-Stop
    database for workshops they have attended, from our client
    database for meetings we have had with them and other
    activities, from CRI which is the software they can log into
    that has a unique user ID and records their time spent doing
    Career Ready 101, and for their self-certification of the small
    job search portion.
        We compile all of that and then those records must be
    transmitted securely to the TANF authority, which is not a
    simple matter either. There are multiple steps on how you
    safeguard people's personally-identifiable information and
    transmit securely.
        Mr. DAVIS. Thank you. Ms. Wilhelm, can I ask you, where do
    you get your funding? Who funds your program?
        Ms. WILHELM. The individual employers provide and pay for
    the trainers, the curriculum, the tools for the program, and
    our association which is a trade association funded by builders
    and trades is paying for all of the equipment that is out
    there.
        Mr. DAVIS. I will tell you, your stock just went up another
    notch.
        [Laughter.]
        Ms. WILHELM. Thank you. I appreciate that.
        Mr. DAVIS. Ms. Terenzio, let me ask you the last question.
    The work is technical that you train people for. How is it
    received in terms of them being able to get jobs?
        Ms. TERENZIO. Well, once they get into our program, as long
    as they successfully complete the initial class we put them
    through, we will hire them as a full-time employee with us. And
    then once they are with us, we will put them on a client
    project and the client also has the option to hire them as a
    full-time employee from our program. So, it is actually kind of
    you get to work with the person before you actually have to
    commit to hiring them, so it is almost guaranteed.
        Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
        Chairman SMITH. Thank you.
        Ms. Walorski.
        Ms. WALORSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Potaczek, thank you so much for coming. You did a great
    job.
        Ms. Terenzio, you say in your testimony you have been
    successful in taking people that don't have degrees and
    teaching them to be software developers.
        The Subcommittee held a hearing last year examining the 1
    in 7 16- to 24-year-olds that are neither in school nor
    working. We heard stories from groups that help these young
    people train for, find, and keep jobs and we heard firsthand
    from one bright young lady who had been through one of these
    programs.
        One takeaway from that hearing for me was that sometimes we
    put too much pressure on kids to go to a 4-year university
    right out of high school whether they are ready or not, and
    worse, we imply that anything less is failure. This mindset
    does more harm than good. The pressure we keep on these kids
    can lead to failure because they get discouraged, throw up
    their hands, and say, ``I am not smart enough. I am not going
    to do this, and it is over.'' Maybe they needed a few years of
    community college, maybe they needed a 4-year degree, maybe
    apprenticeships and trade schools were a better route. Whatever
    the case, the discouragement leads to discouragement.
        I also took away from that the power of human connection,
    and if someone comes alongside that person, that disengaged
    person, coaches them, believes in them, all that doubt washes
    away and they can be successful.
        So first, I want to applaud you for working to bring people
    into an industry that, from the outside looking in, probably
    looks like an unclimbable mountain for somebody without a
    degree.
        I want to ask you, what are the untapped talent pools that
    you look at? How do you engage them? For our most disadvantaged
    and disengaged people in the shadows, do you think there is
    hope to be able to connect them to apprenticeships like yours
    and these other talent pipelines to reconnect to the workforce
    so they can build a better life for themselves and their
    families?
        Ms. TERENZIO. Thank you. So, the beauty about software
    development is that if you are a great software developer, once
    you are in this industry, nobody really cares where you went to
    school and what your background is. And our office in Boulder
    is actually, was across the parking lot from the Google office.
        And we have a theory that people who come to our office
    feel supported, see people all around them who came from the
    jail system or the foster system, all different kinds of
    backgrounds, and they are succeeding with us. And so, it is
    very much a culture of if they can make it, so can I. And so, I
    think it gives people that kind of motivation to know that
    other people with different kinds of backgrounds can also make
    it in this kind of career.
        And the word in our program has gotten out very quickly. We
    work really closely with our workforce centers, with
    nonprofits, with foundations all within Colorado. And every
    time we even just open up on our social media that we have a
    new class starting, we instantly get 500 applications.
        Ms. WALORSKI. And pardon me for the interruption, but do
    you immediately connect them? So, when they come on your
    program and they may come from that shaky kind of a past where
    they may not have a whole lot of confidence or feel like they
    have failed something for no reason, do you connect them with
    the human interaction then? Is there somebody that is
    absolutely connected to keep making sure that they are moving
    forward?
        Ms. TERENZIO. Yeah. We do have a mentor system within our
    company so that you are paired up with people. And, actually,
    you are paired up with somebody who was just an apprentice a
    year before you, so they know where you came from, they have a
    really close firsthand knowledge of where they were just about
    a year ago and that person is actually responsible for training
    them on what they have just learned and getting them integrated
    into our company.
        And we are a for-profit company, so we are pretty motivated
    to get people integrated and productive as fast as possible.
    And so, we are putting them on projects, we are exposing them
    to clients, we are exposing them to work going on within our
    company, we are trying them out on different kinds of projects
    because we want them to be working and we want them to be
    effective really quickly within our company.
        But, again, I think it is more the culture that we have
    created of achievement and that everybody from every kind of
    background can make it with us.
        Ms. WALORSKI. Interesting. Thank you.
        Mr. Potaczek, you mentioned something that struck me
    because I really believe this, and you are a glowing example.
    But can you just speak for a couple seconds on, you talked
    about the employer, the electrical company that you work for
    was like a family, and what struck you when you--because you
    said, you know, you were out for a week, you looked at fast
    food and all those other places, but when you engaged with
    these folks, what struck you about that? I mean, did you really
    see that, ``Oh, my gosh, I am actually going to work for the
    person''? Just, do you have any thoughts on that?
        Mr. POTACZEK. Absolutely. When they came and visited us,
    and they got to talk and speak about what the requirements were
    and what they were looking for, they said that they instill a
    sense of family in people and I have had nothing but a family
    orientation with this company. And I am not saying that all
    companies will bring that. I hope they do, you know. I can't
    say that.
        They have supplied me with the tools, I didn't have to
    worry about the tools. I am getting picked up for work. I mean,
    I have never had a company that would do that for me.
        Ms. WALORSKI. Did you feel like on days that maybe, you
    know, you had questions or whatever, there was a person you
    could connect to that was not going to give up on you?
        Mr. POTACZEK. All the time.
        Ms. WALORSKI. That is awesome.
        Mr. POTACZEK. I have been able to call anyone for help.
        Ms. WALORSKI. That is awesome. Thank you so much. Thanks to
    the panel. And I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
        Chairman SMITH. Thank you.
        Ms. Chu.
        Ms. CHU. Thank you.
        Ms. Tessitore, thank you for joining us to speak about your
    successful workforce development program, but I was shocked
    when you said that less than 10 percent of your participants
    are on TANF. Many of the programs that have been discussed
    today provide great opportunities for individuals if they have
    stability already in other parts of their lives, but what if
    they don't? Individuals need to have support such as childcare,
    housing, and transportation in order to come to work and to
    carry out their duties and that can be difficult.
        Say, for instance, in my home of Los Angeles county, the
    average cost annually of childcare for an infant at a family
    childcare home is $9,186 and it is $8,579 for preschoolers. The
    average single-family household cost to rent is expected to hit
    $1,416 a month, which is an 8 percent increase from last year
    and could only increase I think. At the same time, TANF has not
    been indexed for inflation, making it increasingly more
    difficult for low-income people to meet their basic needs.
        So how does your program work with others in the community
    or utilize government resources to ensure that the basic needs
    of your participants are met while they pursue training and how
    could TANF be changed to be more effective in this regard?
        Ms. TESSITORE. So, thank you for your question. Honestly,
    programs don't work well to move people off of TANF, resources
    need to be aligned. In order to move off of TANF, and to move
    successfully into work, people need some understanding of what
    benefits and supports will be affected when, and how those
    things interact. They need to be able to pay a reduced cost for
    childcare for a period of time, and a reduced cost for housing
    for a period of time.
        We have spent a lot of time, with the TANF authority and
    other agencies, thinking about what those risky points are for
    people, what are those points at which multiple things are
    falling away from you, and that work actually doesn't make
    sense for you, and trying to put in place things that would
    help with that.
        I think also incentivizing work would help. Changing the
    way, and this is something that our TANF authority has proposed
    to our State legislature, changing the way, maybe disregarding
    income for the first 6 months or a higher disregard rate for
    earned income than for other income that you are considering in
    the caseload, changing the way assets are considered, looking
    at the grant amounts and aligning for different categories so
    that there's not--you actually get more money if you are not in
    a work participation program, which unfortunately TANF is so
    byzantine that that actually is happening to people. A higher
    benefit amount if you are not work-required is something that
    is happening.
        It really needs to be a thoughtful design so that both the
    participant and the people trying to help the participant can
    predict reasonably what is going to happen to their income and
    their supports as they transition into work, and participants
    do need support for a period of time.
        There have been initiatives like the Secure Jobs Initiative
    in Massachusetts, which is a partnership between housing and
    the TANF authority and philanthropy. It was actually started by
    philanthropy, and then it was picked up by the State
    legislature to bring together all of the services that a family
    needs in order to transition successfully out of all of those
    things and they have done a lot of good work by planning
    together what those steps are going to be for participants.
        Ms. CHU. And can you say more about the assets? You said
    something about an asset should be determined differently.
        Ms. TESSITORE. Yeah. I think that in, some of it may be
    specific to Massachusetts, but every State is doing it somewhat
    differently, the way we, the amount that you disregard for an
    asset. I think it is that a car is exempted, your first car up
    to a certain value, but the second car is also in there. So,
    looking at the asset limits that we allow people to have, they
    are quite low, so if you have a car worth more than $2,500 or
    $5,000, you are over the asset limit and not eligible. I can't
    speak exactly.
        Ms. CHU. And what if your client had healthcare needs? I
    mean, thank goodness we have the Affordable Care Act, but there
    are some of those who are trying to get into the workforce that
    could have healthcare needs and mental healthcare needs. And as
    a psychologist, I am very cognizant of the fact that there
    could be a need for services to treat depression or substance
    abuse. What do you do in that regard?
        Ms. TESSITORE. So, I will say that we are very, very
    fortunate in Massachusetts to have had universal healthcare for
    many years now and we do not see this as a major problem
    because we have universal healthcare. So, people would be maybe
    transitioning from the type of healthcare that they have, but
    they would not be threatened with the loss of healthcare in
    Massachusetts.
        Ms. CHU. And for those who have been addicted? Because I
    think TANF bars individuals from receiving assistance if they
    have a drug conviction.
        Ms. TESSITORE. I can't speak about that. I'm sorry. I don't
    know.
        Ms. CHU. Well, thank you. I yield back.
        Chairman SMITH. Thank you.
        Mr. Schweikert.
        Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Thomas, particularly, and maybe this is somewhat unique
    to Arizona in our Phoenix market, but we actually have jobs
    desperately looking for workers. Can you first, and I want to
    walk you around because you will see some of the different
    views sometimes on the Committee when you have an environment
    that desperately wants to give you a job, but why have you had
    such difficulties? Why did you have to move to this level of
    creativity? What is your environment like? Tell me about the
    jobs that are still looking for someone?
        Mr. THOMAS. Well, I think, and I can't remember who alluded
    to it earlier, I think it was Ms. Walorski, we have created
    this environment with this younger generation, you know, that
    without a college degree you have no chance of success in life.
    And so, I think that there's this feeling toward construction,
    for example, or against the skill trades, that it is, you know,
    substandard I guess, if you will.
        And when we started our training program in mid-2015, one
    of the biggest challenges we had was simply finding people who
    were interested in the skill trades. So, for us, you know,
    finding a population, you know, that was more than willing and
    ready to come learn was a great success, right?
        Mr. SCHWEIKERT. If you, tomorrow, could find those willing
    to either go through the training or had the skill set, how
    many positions do you think you have or are still available in
    the Phoenix market?
        Mr. THOMAS. Well, in the Phoenix market, I would say it is
    thousands. For us personally, I mean, we could probably hire
    between another 200 or 300 and still have capacity for more, to
    be honest with you.
        Mr. SCHWEIKERT. In your top end, I don't know if you would
    call them a journeyman or what, but how much can a highly-
    skilled, someone that has been in the profession a decade and
    learned their craft, make?
        Mr. THOMAS. So, our top guy last year, a field guy, made
    about $140,000 a year.
        Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Okay. So, there is this really interesting
    thing, you know, if you are willing to sit down and look at
    what we call the U6 data in unemployment, we are still just
    hovering at about what we call a 63 percent labor force
    participation. We still have, as of today's report, 1.8 million
    folks on long-term unemployment and then those who have fallen
    off. And yet, I hear story after story after story from, you
    know, my community that we have thousands of jobs and just need
    people. It is so--this is--I am looking for a solution.
        Mr. THOMAS. Aren't we all?
        [Laughter.]
        Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Yeah. Ms. Wilhelm, Connie, what do you see
    happening with the rest of the homebuilding community in the
    Phoenix market?
        Ms. WILHELM. Well, I am hoping we are going to continue to
    expand our program and hire more ex-offenders. It doesn't help
    to just solve the electrical situation, you know, because we
    are all part of a system and I need framers, you know, I need
    everybody along the way so that we are all building our
    workforce together so that there are no bumps in the road and
    there is nobody that has to be laid off because the other trade
    is not there.
        So, you know, this is a ready and willing population that I
    have seen nowhere else. I have been to a lot of job fairs in a
    lot of different environments and I have never seen the hope
    and the gratitude that has been expressed by the incarcerated.
    And, you know, I tell you, it is an honor to be able to provide
    jobs for them.
        Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Brian, how do we tell your story to others
    that may be in a tough position that there is opportunity and
    hope?
        Mr. POTACZEK. I think you could take me to them and I could
    talk to them and tell them my personal experience.
        [Laughter.]
        Mr. SCHWEIKERT. You are pretty good at this. Hopefully, one
    day you are not planning on running for my job.
        [Laughter.]
        Mr. POTACZEK. I feel that seeing gives a lot of faith. You
    can read a story and not believe it. For others, like I said, I
    would like to go into the prisons one day and tell them my
    success story. And that is with the two other trainers that
    were at the program, they were ex-felons. And to see them and
    hear their success stories really made me want to achieve it,
    and the hope that they have for me and instilled on me, I mean,
    like I said, it is a family-oriented thing.
        Mr. SCHWEIKERT. This is a really uncomfortable question,
    but I grew up in a household where my mother was a substance
    abuse counselor, so you know those sorts of things. What is the
    key to staying sober? Is it the fact that there is work and
    opportunity and is it that hope? What do you think the key is
    for our brothers and sisters out there that have had such a
    tough time?
        Mr. POTACZEK. I love that question. For me, the key to
    staying sober has been working and seeing how much my family
    appreciates what I have done for myself. You have to want it
    for yourself. You have to want to be sober. But to see people
    that I have never met, my family being proud of me and to say
    they are proud of me, it brings me to tears. I have never been
    like that.
        Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Brian, we are all proud of you.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman SMITH. Thank you.
        Ms. Sewell.
        Ms. SEWELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank
    all of our panelists. This has truly been a very inspirational,
    uplifting panel. When I first became a Member of Congress, my
    top priority was job creation. I grew up in my district and my
    district is in Alabama. It includes Birmingham, and Montgomery,
    and Selma, my hometown, so it is an old civil rights district.
        But the reality is a family of four in my district only
    makes $32,000 and the highest unemployment in the State of
    Alabama is in my district. So being able to figure out ways
    that I can close the skills gap and get people opportunity is
    really, really important. In fact, we have made a commitment to
    do a job fair annually and to move it around my district
    because Birmingham's needs may be different than the rural
    parts of my district's needs. And I have to tell you, every
    time we have had a job fair, it has grown bigger and bigger.
    More jobseekers and more employers are willing to come.
        But so often, the jobs go unfilled, so you get a lot of
    folks who feel a little frustrated because the skills that are
    being looked for these days are more, you know, technical and
    are computer-related. And for someone who has been a displaced
    steel worker, to tell them to go back and learn something new,
    it is hard. It really is hard.
        So, I guess my question--I have two questions. Ms. Wilhelm,
    I actually have a really great homebuilders association in
    Alabama. They are awesome. They have an apprenticeship program.
    But how do I encourage them to branch out and actually take a
    risk and hire felons?
        Ms. WILHELM. Tell them to call me.
        [Laughter.]
        I would be happy to share our experiences with them. And
    that is one of the reasons we wanted to come today because, you
    know, hopefully we can be a model for other areas, and you do
    have to take a chance, and it is worth it.
        Ms. SEWELL. So how did you convince the homebuilders in
    Arizona to do it? I mean, did you guys purposely decide to do a
    second chance?
        Ms. WILHELM. I have been there for a number of years
    working with them. And every board meeting, I would hear, ``We
    need workers, we need workers, we need workers,'' and I was
    running out of options. I had been to refugee relocation
    agencies. I had been to a lot of high schools and everything.
        We were moving, and I ran across a binder where I had
    participated in a task force with corrections. And I remember
    that I had gone and seen some of their construction programs,
    so I just called them up.
        Ms. SEWELL. Did you?
        Ms. WILHELM. And said, ``I would like to see what you are
    doing in the prisons. I would like to bring some of my trades
    out and look at what you are teaching them.''
        Ms. SEWELL. Was there resistance from your trades?
        Ms. WILHELM. I had to talk to them about the opportunity. I
    don't know that I would say there was--there was hesitation,
    certainly. I mean, we are going into a correctional facility,
    you know.
        Ms. SEWELL. But success breeds success, obviously.
        Ms. WILHELM. Yes, yes. But it was definitely worth it. And,
    you know, what is really important is that you have a really
    strong commitment by the employer, and they were all in. I
    mean, they had to have a paid training program, they had to
    understand how it is to work with this population and that the
    challenges are a little different. They had to be able to work
    with us to try to overcome those challenges.
        Ms. SEWELL. What do you think is the biggest barrier as a--
    so I am sure you had strict requirements of who can come into
    your program, were some of the requirements barriers in and of
    themselves?
        Ms. WILHELM. From the employers' standpoint?
        Ms. SEWELL. Yes.
        Ms. WILHELM. They had to have a paid training program
    because we were going in and trying to give these women and men
    hope, and a lot of them didn't have the skills but we still
    wanted them in. It was very interesting because as we did our
    hiring fairs, we heard from a lot of them telling me, ``Oh, I
    used to work for so-and-so. Are they still in business?'' So,
    it was very enlightening for us to see that there was a lot of
    skill there that we wanted to capture.
        Ms. SEWELL. Mr. Thomas, so how did your company decide to
    participate in a program and what are the requirements of that
    program? I really want to try to encourage the employers that I
    represent back home to take a risk.
        Mr. THOMAS. Well, and that is what it is. I mean, it
    definitely is an investment.
        Ms. SEWELL. Not a risk but an investment.
        Mr. THOMAS. I mean, and that is the way we--that is the
    approach we took is that it is an investment, you know. We are
    either going to pay today or we are really going to pay
    tomorrow. So, for us, it was really, it was an easy sell. I
    mean, it was, look, it is a great population. They are healthy
    and willing to try this, you know, to try our trade.
        Ms. SEWELL. What is your success rate? I mean, not everyone
    is going to be brought in.
        Mr. THOMAS. We have had about an 80 percent retainage rate,
    which is, by all standards, a fantastic rate.
        Ms. SEWELL. Eighty percent? That is great. Absolutely.
        Well, Brian, you are truly an inspiration and I just want
    to encourage you to tell your story because no one can tell
    your story better than you, but your story speaks to so many
    people's, you know, barriers and their own roadblocks. So best
    of luck in everything.
        Mr. POTACZEK. Thank you, thank you.
        Chairman SMITH. Thank you.
        Mr. LaHood.
        Mr. LAHOOD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank
    the witnesses for being here today for this important hearing
    and for your testimony.
        In a prior life, I spent 10 years as a State and Federal
    prosecutor. And I am not proud of it, but I sent a lot of
    people to prison and jail, and I know that system very well.
    And I also served in our State legislature in Illinois and was
    very involved with criminal justice reform.
        We have talked a lot about how we find that balance between
    safety of our community, letting people out of prison early,
    getting them back into our communities, but also protecting
    society, and that political balance has been difficult. And,
    frankly, we haven't had much success in doing that at the
    Federal level with criminal justice reform.
        And, you know, in the State of Illinois, our goal with our
    criminal justice reform was to get 25 percent of our current
    State prison population out and figure out how to do that,
    particularly the nonviolent offenders. And, again, everybody
    wants to be tough on crime when you run for office, and so
    finding that balance is important. And so, I am listening to
    your testimony today, and particularly, Brian, your testimony,
    and trying to find that right balance.
        And, Mr. Thomas, I read that I think you have 86 former
    offenders working for you and you have had, as you just
    mentioned to Ms. Sewell, an 80 percent retention rate. And I
    wonder if you have suggestions on that balance between
    protecting our citizenry and safety, but also giving people a
    chance.
        Mr. THOMAS. Sure. So, you know, you had mentioned the
    safety factor. You know, I mean, obviously, we want to protect
    our communities. The best way to protect them is to give them
    purpose. And so many of these inmates that I have had
    interaction with over the last, you know, 18 to 24 months, the
    biggest thing was just the fact that they wanted somebody who
    believed in them.
        Most of the inmates that we have hired, they are not bad
    people. Let me rephrase that. All of them are not bad people.
    They have made some poor choices in life. I think the best way
    to serve them is to give them that belief that they can do it.
    We have also made it a point that, you know, all of our
    managers get in touch with them at least every day to some
    degree.
        So, I think, to answer your question, it is really about
    just giving them purpose. I think, ultimately, it is going to
    create the safety for our communities.
        Mr. LAHOOD. Well, I tend to agree with you. Being wanted or
    having a purpose is a big part of that. I am curious, you
    mentioned that your managers interact with them. Obviously, we
    have a parole system as Brian mentioned earlier. We have lots
    of integration systems. I am curious, do you feel that your
    managers are much more involved in aspects of their life or is
    it just related to what they do workwise?
        Mr. THOMAS. Oh, no, it is absolutely, if they have any
    issue that they are dealing with, whether it is personally or
    professionally, they are there to mentor them really, in
    essence, that is what they are there for.
        I do think it is more effective, just from an employer's
    perspective, in the sense that it is more personable. You know,
    the parole board or the probation officers that they see, you
    know, those are just individuals that are there to do their
    job, to make sure that they are staying in line, whereas our
    managers are more, are there to support them, you know, in
    their personal life as well so there is a significant
    difference.
        And I think that has really, truly been one of the
    successes of this whole program is that it is not just teaching
    them a trade. It is, you know, they are mentoring them. And I
    can tell you, I have had a number of managers come to us and
    just tell us how it has impacted their lives personally as
    well. You know, they feel like they are really doing something
    beyond just for themselves or just for the company.
        Mr. LAHOOD. And it sounds like, from what you are saying,
    in some ways, they are kind of a life coach, right, on some of
    those core decisions that are being made.
        Mr. THOMAS. Exactly made.
        Mr. LAHOOD. So, I am curious on that. I mean, do you give
    them training, your managers, or how do they acquire those
    skills to engage in that?
        Mr. THOMAS. No, I don't give them the skills personally. I
    mean, you know, obviously, it is something that we meet once a
    month and have a discussion around. Some of the managers will
    bring to us, you know, maybe some of the problems that some of
    the particular inmates are having and we kind of all work
    together to come up with a viable solution for them. We have
    had individuals that couldn't find housing, so we stepped up
    and we basically paid for their housing to get them over the
    hump. So, it is a combination of, I think, a lot of different
    things.
        A lot of it is just learning on the fly, you know. A lot of
    these guys are just learning it as they are--because everybody
    is a different case, right? I mean, everybody is an individual,
    so all the problems are individually different too, so----
        Mr. LAHOOD. Well, thank you for what you do, and for trying
    to help your community, and for sharing here today. I
    appreciate it very much.
        Mr. THOMAS. You bet.
        Chairman SMITH. Thank you. That is an amazing background.
        Oh, sorry, one more. My apologies.
        Mr. BISHOP. Wow.
        Chairman SMITH. Mr. Bishop is recognized.
        [Laughter.]
        Mr. BISHOP. I am a low man on the totem pole. I won't be
    long.
        First of all, thank you all for being here today. I am
    grateful, and we are all benefitted by your testimony. In my
    previous life, I was a prosecutor. I have been in and out of
    courts and had some time to spend in the prison system with
    folks, not personally, but in my role as a prosecutor.
        I don't know that there are any services within the prison
    system that will prepare folks, inmates, for leaving. And I am
    wondering, Brian, what would it have been like if you had left
    without this, this transition into this beautiful opportunity
    that you have had?
        Mr. POTACZEK. I had already had results with being released
    and being reincarcerated because I didn't have job stability. I
    mean, for me, that is what it comes down to is job stability
    and everything else comes past that, paying your fines with
    work, clothing, dental, health insurance, not using access, or
    I mean, it is just, it is better. For me with the job
    stability, everything else just kind of fell in place after
    that.
        Mr. BISHOP. That hits close to home for me because I have
    an 18-year-old at home too and he just had wisdom teeth out,
    and he came home with a prescription for an opioid. And I
    didn't, I purposely did not fill it because I just thought it
    was incredibly, let us just say, negligent on the part of the
    doctor for having prescribed it. It was way over prescription,
    as far as I was concerned. But I know what happens all the time
    and this is a message that we need to get out to a lot of
    parents who are in the same situation.
        But I wondered if I might ask the panel, there is a study
    by a Princeton economist, Alan Krueger, and he found that the
    increase in prescribing rates can account for between 20 and 25
    percent of the approximately 5-point drop in labor force
    participation between 1999 and 2015. Is that real?
        This is where the opioid crisis and the job issue interact.
    It is amazing to me that that is indeed an issue and it is that
    big of an issue. So, I don't know, does anybody feel inspired
    to answer that question?
        Ms. WILHELM. I would be happy to talk a little bit about
    our experience. I would say probably 90 plus percentage of the
    people we interact with are incarcerated for some drugs or
    drug-related offenses and it is a huge problem.
        And I think one of the reasons that sometimes they are not
    successful, even after they know they have a job getting out,
    just actually showing up and whatever, is that intervention
    into them going out and starting to use again, so it is a huge
    crisis. And then sometimes they will work for a week, get their
    first paycheck, and they are gone, and they are out buying
    drugs again. So, no, we see it every day, not just in this
    population, but in the workforce certainly.
        Mr. POTACZEK. My experience with it, you know, I got my
    wisdom teeth pulled and I just started doing the pills. I was
    coming from a good family, my mom is supportive, not on drugs,
    came from a good community, and that spiraled me down and I
    lost everything just from that. I lost my job, so I believe in
    it. I believe there is others out there and I believe it is
    affecting our communities really, really bad. And I have seen
    it from firsthand experience and I have had experiences with
    talking to other inmates about the same stories, how it just
    gets out of control.
        Mr. BISHOP. That is incredible testimony. And I have heard
    the same thing, I just didn't know it was at this level, that
    it had had that kind of impact.
        Ms. Terenzio, you have a program that you participate in
    called Skillful. And the Skillful, I think it is the Skillful
    State Network?
        Ms. TERENZIO. Mm-hmm.
        Mr. BISHOP. Can you share with us what that is about? It
    sounds like a very interesting program for States.
        Ms. TERENZIO. Yeah. Skillful's mission is to have employers
    consider employees based on their skills, not necessarily their
    background and degrees. And so, we work with them pretty
    closely as a model of basically what a company can look like if
    you consider people just based on what they can do and not
    necessarily what their pedigree looks like.
        And so, we helped them kind of get the word out. We are a
    case study for them. We support each other, you know, through
    literature and speaking engagements, and so we have worked
    pretty closely with them just in kind of getting the word out
    to other employers about what you can do if you don't just
    consider degrees on every job application.
        Mr. BISHOP. So how many States are you in and how is this
    funded?
        Ms. TERENZIO. Our particular program or Skillful?
        Mr. BISHOP. Skillful.
        Ms. TERENZIO. Skillful is an offshoot of the Markle
    Foundation based out of New York City and they are just
    expanding. But we just, we partner with them. We are not a
    part, we are not actually Skillful, so we are just an
    apprenticeship program through the Department of Labor.
        And we are currently in Colorado, but we are looking, we
    are looking at rural-sourcing kind of jobs, so we are also
    looking at creating opportunity in rural areas where we can use
    our apprenticeship program to train people and maybe instead of
    Silicon Valley or going to India for software development, they
    actually go to rural parts of America to write their software.
        Mr. BISHOP. That's fascinating. Thank you very much.
        Chairman SMITH. Thank you. So, you are saying someone could
    show up with a Nebraska Huskers attire on and still get a job
    in Boulder, Colorado?
        Ms. TERENZIO. Correct.
        [Laughter.]
        Chairman SMITH. Very good, very good. Thank you so much.
    Really, your insight, your perspectives, and these are great
    stories. Thank you again, Brian, for sharing your story and
    thanks to all of you.
        It involves everyone here, the complexities of the system
    that we need to look at, and I think this hearing is
    particularly instructive for us as we try to work together to
    move forward for the betterment of our country through the
    betterment of individuals and some second chances, or third, or
    fourth from time to time as well. So, thank you very much for
    your participation here today. Thanks.
        We will now focus on the second panel of witnesses.
        So, as we are shifting positions here, I will say that,
    unfortunately, one of our witnesses was unable to attend today,
    a Mr. Tony Girifalco, and he is the Executive Vice President of
    the Delaware Valley Industrial Resource Center in Philadelphia,
    Pennsylvania.
        I do ask for unanimous consent that his written statement
    be made a part of the record.
        Without objection, we will do that.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Girifalco follows:]
    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman SMITH. I now recognize Ms. Jenkins for the purpose
    of introducing her constituent from Kansas.
        Ms. JENKINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        It is my pleasure to introduce Justin Welner from Spirit
    AeroSystems based out of Wichita, Kansas. Spirit AeroSystems
    designs and builds aero structures for both commercial and
    defense customers and is the largest private employer in my
    home State of Kansas.
        Mr. Welner serves as Spirit's Vice President for Human
    Resources and the Environmental Health and Safety Department.
    He has worked for his entire career in the aerospace industry,
    having previously worked for Bomabardier Learjet, where he
    served as Director of Human Resources in addition to holding
    numerous other leadership roles during his nearly 20 years with
    the company.
        Mr. Welner, thank you for being here today. We are looking
    forward to hearing your expertise in this subject area.
    Welcome.
        I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Jenkins.
        Dr. Davis for the introduction of your constituent.
        Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much. And it is my pleasure to
    introduce Mr. Andrew Wells.
        Not only am I pleased to do so because of his expertise and
    knowledge, but he also grew up in the community where I live,
    which is on the west side of Chicago which is known as one of
    the most poverty-stricken areas in the country, an area where
    the riots occurred after the assassination of Dr. King and an
    area that has been called a microcosm of what is wrong with
    urban America, and that has been for many years.
        The Chicago Urban League has been around since the early
    1900s and then intimately engaged in program development that
    is designed to lift the country out of its position of need to
    a position of productivity.
        So, Mr. Wells, thank you so much for being here, and I am
    delighted that the Urban League is doing the work that you do.
        Chairman SMITH. Thank you.
        I would like to recognize Ms. Walorski for the purpose of
    introducing her constituent from Indiana.
        Ms. WALORSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have the pleasure
    of introducing Peter Barrett. Peter is the Senior Vice
    President of Marketing and Corporate Development at Smoker
    Craft in New Paris, Indiana.
        Smoker Craft is a multigeneration, family-owned boat
    manufacturer located in my district. Peter has been with the
    company since 1996 and is carrying on the family tradition as
    the fourth-generation owner/employee.
        I love visiting Peter at his company, Smoker Craft, and
    hearing from Peter and his employees, and I am delighted that
    he is with us today to share his insights on the jobs gap.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Ms. WILHELM. Thank you.
        Chairman SMITH. And witnesses are reminded to limit their
    oral statements to 5 minutes. All of your written statements
    will be included in the record.
        We will begin with Mr. Welner. You may begin when you are
    ready.

    STATEMENT OF JUSTIN WELNER, VICE PRESIDENT FOR HUMAN RESOURCES,
                           SPIRIT AEROSYSTEMS

        Mr. WELNER. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Davis, and
    Members of the Ways and Means Committee, thank you for allowing
    me to testify today about the workforce pipeline challenges
    facing our company along with other advanced manufacturing
    businesses across our country.
        Spirit AeroSystems designs and builds large, complex
    aerostructures for both commercial and defense customers. Our
    largest customers include Boeing and Airbus, and in 2016 we
    were named as one of seven suppliers on the B-21 Raider program
    for the Air Force.
        With headquarters in Wichita, Kansas, Spirit operates
    manufacturing sites in Oklahoma, North Carolina, Europe, and
    Asia. Our core products include fuselages, pylons, nacelles,
    and wing components.
        Spirit is the largest private-sector employer in the State
    of Kansas with more than 11,500 employees. Last December, our
    company announced we would be expanding our Wichita operations
    by adding 1,000 new jobs over 2 years and investing $1 billion
    over 5 years in capital projects. This was driven by production
    rate increases on existing programs as well as new programs in
    the areas of defense and fabrication.
        Building a talented workforce from today's labor pool is
    one of the largest challenges our company faces as we hire to
    keep up with natural attrition rates and seek to expand our
    base employment to meet production requirements of our
    customers.
        Before I explain our experience with workforce constraints,
    I want to provide additional context for what we are up
    against.
        At our Wichita site, we employ about 7,500 line-workers.
    These include sheet metal mechanics, assembly mechanics, CNC
    operators, and composite tech who fabricate, build, and
    assemble large metallic and composite aircraft structures.
        At our four U.S. sites, we have hired more than 4,000
    front-line employees since 2015, about 1,000 of those in the
    last 3 months.
        But like many other advanced manufacturers, we are faced
    with an aging workforce. And what keeps me up at night is the
    fact that within 5 years, 40 percent of my entire workforce
    will be retirement-eligible. The enormity of this reality and
    the challenge it poses for us, along with thousands of other
    advanced manufacturers, cannot be overstated. Spirit has been
    hiring as quickly as possible to fill open positions, but we
    are struggling to find qualified workers with the skillsets
    needed in today's aerospace manufacturing environment.
        Three years ago, it was customary for us to hire someone
    and put them through 2 to 3 weeks of training depending on the
    experience level of that new employee. Today, we have retooled
    and expanded our in-house training programs that now last up to
    7 weeks, so when we recruit and hire somebody, it is 7 weeks
    before they hit the shop floor and actually produce any real
    work and it is several additional weeks before they become
    fully productive.
        The challenge we are experiencing is not isolated to a
    State or regional problem. It is a national problem, and we are
    nearing the verge of what could become a watershed moment for
    our country as we determine what we want the future of
    manufacturing to look like in the United States. How we respond
    and our ability to proactively pursue collaborative solutions
    will define our success.
        While I've described some of our industry's obstacles to
    filling open jobs, I want to pivot for a moment and share with
    you some of the solutions we have deployed to help to try to
    overcome those barriers.
        We are investing millions of dollars into an expanded in-
    house training program that includes growing our training
    department by 30 people. Their focus is on improving the
    skillsets of the new hires and getting them better prepared to
    be successful on the shop floor.
        We have expanded our recruitment efforts to reach well
    beyond the State border and we are now offering very generous
    relocation packages for experienced hourly employees. While we
    have had some isolated examples of success with this, most
    hourly workers come from two-income families and are well-
    rooted in the communities in which they reside.
        In the last few months, we have launched a retiree and
    alumni program where former employees are now hired to come
    back to work as a workplace coach to mentor and guide less
    experienced mechanics as they begin to navigate the
    complexities of the manufacturing environment.
        For several years, Spirit has had an apprenticeship program
    with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and
    this year, we are launching several additional apprenticeship
    programs with the International Association of Machinists and
    Aerospace Workers.
        In addition, for many years, we have worked cooperatively
    with the technical colleges located near our manufacturing
    facilities to guide and shape curriculum programs that meet the
    needs of our industry. We have intensified that engagement
    based on the tightening of the labor market.
        Last year for the first time, we started a high school
    intern program to bring high school students into the factory
    and introduce them to careers in manufacturing. Based on the
    success of that program, we will be doubling the size of that
    program this year.
        One other strategy that was targeted toward high school
    students that has helped is the Excel in Career Technical
    Education initiative, which is more commonly referred to as
    Kansas Senate Bill 155. That law took effect in 2012 and pays
    for students to obtain technical certifications and credentials
    before they graduate high school. We have hired many students
    through this program.
        But while all of these initiatives are helping address the
    challenge faced by our industry, unfortunately they are not
    yielding nearly enough potential workers. So, I would like to
    conclude by highlighting a few additional opportunities that
    this Committee and Congress could consider to further assist
    aerospace and advanced manufacturing.
        The first thing is for leaders to understand that if our
    country cannot solve the workforce problem and talent pipeline
    issues, our U.S. industrial base will erode because businesses
    will be forced to move work to countries that can satisfy
    production demand. This is not a threat targeted at our elected
    leaders. It is a threat we all face together, given the
    realities of operating in a global economy.
        A second thing for us all to address is the need to better
    promote the dignity of career paths in technical fields such as
    advanced manufacturing. All too often, parents and our
    education system encourage students to seek post-secondary
    education through a 4-year degree, and we ignore career paths
    that require vocational training.
        And finally, I would encourage this Committee and Congress
    to consider options that allow Pell Grants to be used for
    students seeking certifications and credentials in technical
    programs that are less than 16 weeks long. By limiting
    qualifying students from receiving Pell Grants for credentialed
    technical training programs that are under 16 weeks, we create
    an unnecessary barrier for lower-income students to achieve
    success through a career in manufacturing.
        I appreciate being invited to testify on behalf of Spirit
    AeroSystems. This Committee is faced with many challenges of
    national significance. We are grateful for the work you did on
    tax reform and we are grateful you are spending time to further
    explore ways to help the private sector address these workforce
    challenges.
        Thank you for your leadership on these matters. I look
    forward to answering your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Welner follows:]
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        Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Welner.
        Mr. Wells, you are recognized.

      STATEMENT OF ANDREW WELLS, DIRECTOR, WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT
                      CENTER, CHICAGO URBAN LEAGUE

        Mr. WELLS. Thank you, Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Davis,
    and Members of the Subcommittee for the opportunity to offer
    testimony here today. My name is Andrew Wells and I am the
    Director of Workforce Development at the Chicago Urban League.
        In my role at the Chicago Urban League, I am tasked with
    the very important job of connecting people to employment
    opportunities, training, and career pathways to high-growth
    sectors. In the 100 years our organization has been in service
    to the African American community, this has been a staple of
    our work.
        Employment is the most essential building block in
    individual and community economic growth. A good job helps to
    alleviate household poverty and a strong job market gets more
    people in a community working and more dollars circulating
    locally and nationally.
        The Chicago Urban League focuses specifically on assisting
    individuals in the highest areas of need, in racially
    concentrated areas of poverty, the areas that have the highest
    unemployment rates in the city, located primarily on the South
    and West sides of Chicago.
        Youth and adults living in racially concentrated areas of
    poverty, however, have a significant number of barriers to
    accessing jobs.
        One, there is a significant employment spatial mismatch.
    Strong central business districts and suburban employment cores
    house many of the best opportunities for workers. In places
    like Chicago, where jobs are located are not where African
    Americans most in need of jobs live.
        Someone who doesn't live near transportation or who lacks a
    car might have a very difficult time getting to work. The
    distance might be too considerable to manage working, child,
    and household obligations.
        The pay may not be adequate to overcome increased costs
    related to commute and child care. All of these barriers
    conspire to reduce a person's ability to both find and keep a
    good job.
        The collateral consequences of criminal records
    significantly impede employment opportunities. We know that
    employment is a critical part of the re-entry process, and yet
    there are barriers at all levels of hiring and promotion
    throughout all industries and sectors.
        Skills, job readiness and training programs need to be more
    abundant. These skills need to be targeted in areas of growth,
    like green and emerging industries.
        The Chicago Urban League strongly encourages more training
    opportunities for youth and adults from the most disadvantaged
    neighborhoods to build on their employability skills. But that
    is not the only answer. We also need to do the following.
        Enact an employment subsidies program that would place
    unemployed individuals in the private sectors, private and
    public sectors, including those with criminal records.
        Expand apprenticeships, summer and employment opportunity
    programs for youth.
        Increase workforce training opportunities for African
    American adults and match them with employment through public
    and private partnerships.
        Reduce the collateral consequences of a criminal record and
    barriers to employment through sound criminal justice reforms.
        Create or expand transportation subsidies to ensure that
    workers can get to their places of employment.
        Create small business incubators in racially concentrated
    areas of poverty to bring local, accessible jobs to these
    disinvested communities.
        Last, but not least, ensure equity in public education.
    Illinois has the worst disparities for funding in the Nation
    when it comes to equity for low-income minority students.
    Providing youth with good quality education will go a long way
    toward improving access to jobs, to quality jobs by preparing
    youth to get jobs.
        I know that this will not be easy. I know this takes
    political and community will to accomplish. But we all know how
    critical increasing employment opportunities are to our
    neighborhoods and to cities across the country.
        Expanding these opportunities will not only increase
    employment in our most under-resourced communities, but also
    reduce crime, decrease household poverty, increase home
    ownership, and build community wealth.
        We cannot continue to accept that, in great cities like
    Chicago, the highest unemployment rate for people of color in
    the Nation is the norm. We must do what is right to ensure
    equal access to opportunity for all American citizens. Thank
    you.
        I would like to just share this one thing. We operated a
    transportation construction apprenticeship highway program for
    about 3 years. We trained 598 individuals in this, in this
    program, most of whom were ex-offenders or came from
    disadvantaged neighborhoods. I want to share this one success
    story because this is why I keep doing the work that I do.
        There was a young lady, and I will call her Ms. Dewberry,
    who was a single mother with three children. Literally, she was
    making decisions at the gas pump on whether to put gas in her
    car or to put food on the table. At the time that she applied
    to the Chicago Urban League, she worked at Monterrey Security
    making $11.54 an hour. Now, mind you, she has three kids.
        So, I did her interview when she enrolled in the program
    and I asked her, I said, ``Well, you already have a job.'' I
    said, ``Why are you enrolling in a program?'' She said, ``Well,
    Mr. Wells,'' she said, ``I can't continue.'' She said, ``I
    don't know what to do.'' She said, ``Every night, I am crying.
    I can't take care of my kids off of $11.54 an hour.''
        Well, I enrolled her in the program and she ended up
    becoming the best laborer, the best apprentice at the Chicago
    Urban League. And right now, this young lady is making $37.50
    an hour and it changed her life.
        Not only did it change her life, but it changed the lives
    of so many other people who came through our doors. If you have
    quality training programs that can provide real skills that
    employers can use, it works. So, I just want to leave you with
    that.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Wells follows:]
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        Chairman SMITH. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Wells.
        Mr. Barrett.

     STATEMENT OF PETER BARRETT, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, MARKETING
         AND CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT, SMOKER CRAFT, INCORPORATED

        Mr. BARRETT. Good afternoon. Thank you, Chairman Smith,
    Ranking Member Davis, and Members of the Subcommittee, for the
    opportunity to appear before you today to discuss an issue
    important to my business and the recreational boating industry,
    workforce development. My name is Peter Barrett. I am proud to
    represent Smoker Craft, Incorporated, a boat manufacturer
    located in New Paris, Indiana.
        Founded in 1903, we are a fourth-generation family-owned
    and operated business that builds pontoon boats, fiberglass
    boats, aluminum fishing boats under the brand names Smoker
    Craft, Starcraft, Sunchaser, and Sylvan. Last year, Smoker
    Craft built and distributed over 11,000 boats to our worldwide
    dealer network. Our company employs over 690 people at our two
    manufacturing and transportation locations.
        The recreational boating industry is an important driver of
    the U.S. economy, with an annual economic impact of more than
    $121.5 billion. Our industry is uniquely American. Our industry
    is a uniquely American-made product. Ninety-five percent of
    boats sold in the United States are made in the United States.
    Behind a fun day on the water with family and friends are
    American businesses and manufacturing jobs.
        Our manufacturing is unique to the boat business and
    employees must have a broad range of skills. Our highly-skilled
    employees must weld, rivet, and fiberglass laminate. Less-
    skilled workers need the skills to read a tape measure, utilize
    simple power tools, and follow basic instructions. Our jobs do
    not require a 4-year degree. They pay well and have great
    benefits. A solid employee can quickly move up and establish a
    career in our organization.
        The boating industry is strong and many of our 300-plus
    dealers report that 2017 was their best year ever. Many dealers
    have indicated that they could sell more product if we could
    meet the demand. We have plenty of work. Today, our backlog is
    20 percent larger than last year. Unfortunately, we will be
    challenged to meet this demand and will struggle to continue to
    grow if we cannot find skilled employees.
        Our current employment situation is troubling, and the
    future looks even worse. We are located in a region with lower
    unemployment and higher job opening rates than the rest of the
    country. With an aging workforce and a small pool of qualified
    workers to recruit from, we are concerned with the future
    prospect of finding skilled workers, a critical component for
    our growth as a business.
        Last month, we thanked an employee named Frank Perales for
    50 years of service on our aluminum riveted line. Frank is
    dedicated to our company and an excellent boat builder. His
    ability to quickly solve problems, coupled with a strong work
    ethic, have made him a model employee. As we presented his
    gift, he said he would like to retire in a year or two.
        Unfortunately, replacing someone like Frank might require
    two people to achieve the same level of production. If we could
    find the right person, Frank should be mentoring his
    replacement right now.
        Beyond the production line, a similar issue impacts our
    transportation division. Our drivers haul boats around the
    country and into Canada. The long days and nights on the road
    coupled with unloading boats upon arrival is exhausting for our
    older drivers. Many of our senior drivers face further
    challenges in adapting to the use of electronic log books and
    have changed jobs or retired simply to avoid learning new
    technical skills. Replacing these drivers is difficult as
    younger people show little interest in this career path and we
    need our boats delivered.
        The future challenge we see is attracting and training the
    younger employee for our workplace. Our area, once known for
    its strong family farm work ethic, is struggling to find young
    people with the grit and desire to participate in American
    manufacturing.
        Very well-designed skills training programs have been tried
    through our local community college but have failed as
    employers can't wait for live bodies, trained or untrained. As
    participation in these programs dwindled, funding was frozen.
        The concept of workforce training programs is vital to
    bridging the jobs gap we are facing today and in the future.
    Simply put, we need skilled workers. Our industry needs
    welders, riveters, assembly people, and truck drivers. Shop
    classes need to return, and exposure to careers in
    manufacturing through internships and apprenticeships should be
    encouraged. Careers in the trades need to be recognized and
    glorified. Our workforce is the backbone of this country. We
    need to support the expansion of career and technical education
    or CTE, just as we support 4-year and graduate education.
        I am pleased to see Congress taking steps in the recently
    passed Appropriations legislation to support the Department of
    Labor and Department of Education programs that promote access,
    completion, and affordability of workforce training efforts.
    The funding and support is crucial to States and localities
    trying to meet the needs of employers such as Smoker Craft,
    Incorporated.
        Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you
    today. I look forward to answering your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Barrett follows:]
    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Barrett, and thank you to
    our entire panel. It is, again, great to hear your perspective,
    your expertise as well.
        We know that there is oftentimes the challenge of, you
    know, we know that folks need a job and want to work, there are
    openings out there, and bringing everyone together is
    oftentimes more difficult than one would think.
        America is a big country, too. And geographically, there
    can be some distances that are problematic or a challenge, even
    in the city. And transportation can be a challenge with a
    worker getting to a job site.
        I am proud to say Nebraska, I think, has done fairly well
    in terms of advancing these causes. I am glad that Forbes
    recently has ranked Nebraska the fourth best place to do
    business, but I know that I still hear from many employers who
    face the challenge of job openings that remain unfilled.
        And so, we know, as Mr. Wells already indicated, that some
    community partnerships can really deliver positive results,
    positive outcomes, increasing wages. I mean, not only getting
    someone perhaps into a job, and you know, that might just be
    checking a box, but when you really look at raising oneself up
    out of poverty, it means increasing wages and that drive to see
    higher wages with time, with time and effort.
        So, I was wondering if others on the panel, and certainly,
    Mr. Wells, if you want to add emphasis as well to the community
    partnerships that have been formed that bring folks in need,
    whether it is the job opening, whether it is the unemployed
    individual, or the underemployed individual as was mentioned
    before, can you point to some specific community partnerships
    that have been particularly successful?
        Mr. WELLS. Sure. So right now, at the Chicago Urban League,
    we have two projects running with ComEd. ComEd is one of the
    largest electric suppliers in the Midwest, specifically in
    Illinois.
        And one of the projects is called Construct. It is an 11-
    week training program to equip individuals with the skills to
    go into the electrical construction industry. So, we partner
    with about seven other agencies and 47 companies are a part of
    this project.
        The 47 companies pay into the program to create that
    pipeline of individuals. The 47 companies are subcontractors
    with ComEd, so we are essentially building that pipeline for
    those companies who claim that, hey, we don't have talented
    workers, we need skilled workers, so we are creating it for
    them.
        Another project that I am running with ComEd is the solar
    PV installation jobs training program. We currently have a
    cohort of 15. It just started April 6th and this is a project
    that we received $1 million for to train one hundred people
    over the course of 4 years.
        We have other partnerships with corporations such as AT&T,
    in which we do digital literacy training to eliminate the
    digital divide and then to also provide individuals to their
    call center jobs and other technical jobs.
        We work with Comcast. We have a relationship with them. We
    train people for jobs at Comcast. We just renewed our contract
    with them.
        And I recently received a contract with the Chicago Transit
    Authority, in which we are training individuals similar to a
    project that we are running with Construct where it is, this
    one is 8 weeks and it is training people to become bus
    operators and also call center representatives.
        Chairman SMITH. Very good.
        Mr. Welner.
        Mr. WELNER. Yes. So, we work with the Kansas Workforce
    Alliance to bring in the underemployed and put them through a
    training program. In fact, we have a Camp Grant to help do
    that.
        We have been fairly successful with it. The challenge that
    we face is that the manufacturing environment isn't necessarily
    appealing to some people. It is a 5-day, sometimes 6-days a
    week job. We are a heavily-unionized company, so you start on
    second shift based on seniority and that brings some challenges
    with it as well.
        But, nonetheless, we are absolutely exploring every avenue
    we can to find workers including looking for community
    partnerships to get to everybody we possibly can.
        Chairman SMITH. Very good.
        Mr. Barrett.
        Mr. BARRETT. We have explored several different avenues
    over the years. But, unfortunately, we have found that being
    where we are in the pecking order in Elkhart County makes it
    more difficult in our line of work. As you may have seen in the
    Wall Street Journal article, the focal hub of manufacturing is
    the RV industry in Elkhart County. And the boat business, we
    are a little bit different. We are classified with RV, but we
    are a different animal. We tend to work at a slower pace. Our
    boats tend to be a little bit more customized than an RV. Our
    pace attracts entry level employees that can work a little bit
    slower, but at the same time, we tend to pay a little bit less.
        So being in that place in the employment pecking order, the
    more valuable or the more skilled employees tend to go to RV
    first and then they filter down to us. So, what happens is
    typically the vocational schools will feed RV before us. We
    have tried several programs to capitalize on job placement, but
    we just have not had much luck.
        Chairman SMITH. Okay. Thank you.
        I now recognize Dr. Davis for 5 minutes of questions.
        Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Welner, do the high schools and community colleges in
    the area where your plants and facilities are located, are they
    preparing individuals for work in the manufacturing areas?
        Mr. WELNER. So certainly, the community colleges and the
    vocational schools are trying. The challenge is getting the
    students into them, right? We do have some high school programs
    that are starting to take positive effect in terms of
    partnering with a technical school and allowing students to get
    their technical certifications or credentials while they are in
    high school.
        The big challenge seems to be the lack of interest in that
    generation in this type of work. We are starting to push all
    the way down into the middle schools and elementary schools,
    starting to talk to kids about the positive benefits of careers
    in manufacturing. And we don't think of it as just a job, we
    think of it as a career.
        When I started 25 years ago at Learjet, I started as a
    payroll clerk at $8.50 an hour, coming out of a 4-year school
    with a degree in finance. That wasn't my aiming point, but it
    was a way in the door, and that is the promise we are trying to
    talk to these kids about. And if you look at most of our
    leaders in the manufacturing world, they started on the shop
    floor, so it can absolutely be a career and not just a job, but
    we have to get the kids interested in it.
        Mr. DAVIS. So, if there was perhaps more focus put on
    recruitment, because many of the individuals who end up in need
    of TANF are individuals who have gone past or didn't complete
    or did not follow the high school curriculum to the point, so I
    am just thinking that some additional recruitment of this
    population group, especially young adults who have no skill but
    fit the category and the requirements for TANF assistance, I
    think would probably be----
        Mr. WELNER. I think that would be great. I think we have
    lost a lot of the shop classes in the school system. When I
    came through the school system, you could take a mechanical
    shop class, you could take a woodworking class. All of that is
    gone. So, the kids that maybe the regular curriculum isn't
    right for, they don't have anywhere to go.
        Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Wells, I know that the Urban League does not
    officially have a training program that is directly related to
    TANF recipients, but you do get them, right?
        Mr. WELLS. That is correct.
        Mr. DAVIS. I understand people do come who meet the
    criteria to be a TANF recipient. Are you able to connect them
    in any way with TANF or to pursue resources through TANF that
    could benefit them?
        Mr. WELLS. I'm sorry. Are you saying, are you talking
    specifically about TANF participants that come through Chicago
    Urban League's doors and connecting them to different
    resources?
        Mr. DAVIS. Right.
        Mr. WELLS. Yes. So, we do an assessment to figure out what
    the need is, if they come through our doors and they are
    interested in some type of training. Right now, we run several
    of them. We have the Ready to Work Grant in which we provide
    technology training. We have training in supply chain
    management. We have construction training to increase minority
    participation in the trades. So, it depends on what, it depends
    on what they want to do and if they qualify for that, for those
    programs and then we will enroll them in the programs.
        Mr. DAVIS. Well, let me just, I have been particularly
    warmed with the coming with that as an activity relative to
    helping individuals get into the electrical area, so let me
    just commend the Urban League for that affiliation. Thank you
    very much, and I yield back to the Chairman the balance of my
    time.
        Mr. WELLS. Thank you.
        Chairman SMITH. Thank you.
        Ms. Walorski.
        Ms. WALORSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And to Peter's
    point, there was an article that he referenced in the Wall
    Street Journal last week, and the headline is ``The Future of
    America's Economy Looks a Lot Like Elkhart, Indiana,'' and
    Peter is right down the road from Elkhart in my district.
        The article says, ``High school students skip college for
    factory jobs that offer great pay and benefits. Workers are so
    flush that car dealers can't keep new pickups on the lot. At
    the same time, employers can't hold onto employees.'' It points
    out that the unemployment rate is essentially zero because
    there are 9,500 jobs available in this place in Elkhart.
        So, Peter, to your point, as we talk about that, there are
    challenges between this article and your testimony. Which is
    the hardest to do, find workers, teach them skills, or retain
    them? What is the toughest part of those three for you?
        Mr. BARRETT. That is a really tough choice because all
    three are exceptionally difficult. Retaining employees has been
    very difficult. I will give you an example that happened on
    Monday. I walked into my office and an employee who had been
    with us for 20 years came to me, with tears in his eyes to tell
    me he was leaving. Our employees are family, and so when a 20-
    year employee comes to us and he is saying that he is going to
    leave, that is a big deal.
        Martin has worked for us for 20 years. He drives a
    forklift. He found a job across town for $10 more an hour. Our
    industry and our company doesn't have the means to be able to
    raise rates that abruptly, to get into a wage war and to chase
    employees. So we just lost a really good employee who I would
    love to still have, and as I said, he is part of the family.
    This is one of many heartbreaking stories where we are losing
    good employees with longevity. They are leaving good benefits
    and stability in a short-term wage war.
        Ms. WALORSKI. And let me ask you this. With 2017 being a
    record year you talked about, and with tax cuts, with more
    money in folks' pockets, looking at things they want to be
    involved in, do you need to hire more workers? And what if you
    found enough workers, what would that do for your company?
        Mr. BARRETT. If we found more workers we would certainly
    bring our factory up to full capacity. We have three different
    product lines, pontoons, aluminum fishing boats, as well as
    fiberglass. Our aluminum fishing boat's welded line could use
    several more employees. Right now, we have 44 openings which
    need to be filled. Also, if we could get more employees in the
    Elkhart area it would help relieve the supply chain. It is not
    just our business, but it is the supply chain underneath us
    that is suffering, too. So, if our console supplier can't build
    consoles due to an employee shortage, we can't build those
    boats that day.
        Ms. WALORSKI. I appreciate it. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman SMITH. Thank you.
        Mr. Curbelo.
        Mr. CURBELO. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. And thank you
    all for being here to discuss this very important topic with
    us. We are focused on how we can help some of the most
    vulnerable, needy people in our country.
        And I have been fortunate to team up with Dr. Davis, this
    Congress, to figure out how we can perhaps modify or leverage
    our existing social welfare programs such as TANF to open new
    doors, provide new opportunities to those who are on the
    sidelines as Chairman Brady tends to say.
        Do you all have any ideas as to how we might be able to use
    those programs, not just to help people get by, but to help get
    them into the workforce, to help them get up on their feet, and
    hopefully eventually become independent of all these programs?
    Anyone who wants to take it.
        Mr. WELLS. I think one of the things that needs to happen
    is an exception needs to be made for those who are interested
    in enrolling in a skills training program. So, if they are
    interested in it, the 20-hour stipulation each week, that needs
    to come down because most of the training programs go past 20
    hours, so I think an exception needs to be made in order for
    them to get an industry-recognized credential and go into some
    type of good-paying job.
        Mr. CURBELO. Does anyone else want to add to that?
        Do you have any thoughts on wage support for employers who
    contract higher, TANF beneficiaries for example?
        Mr. WELNER. We are not really involved with that. Most of
    the people we hire have to have some credentials from a skills
    standpoint because we are building very complex aerostructures
    that require precision and training, so my company is not very
    involved in that, so I can't add much to it.
        Mr. CURBELO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman SMITH. Thank you. Thank you to everyone here for
    your participation. It means a lot that you would share your
    perspective.
        And please be advised that Members will have 2 weeks to
    submit written questions to be answered later in writing. Those
    questions and your answers will be made part of the formal
    hearing record.
        With that, the Subcommittee stands adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 3:58 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

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